After her mother Li Huanying is fatally injured in a car accident in 2001, grief-stricken Jia Xiaoling finds herself transported back in time to the year 1981, where she becomes her mother's close friend. Jia Xiaoling feels that she has not been a good enough daughter in the present, so back in 1981 she does all she can to make Li Huanying happy, including setting her up with a factory manager's son, Shen Guanglin, in the hope of giving her mother a better husband, a better daughter, and a better life than she had the first time around. The film is adapted from Jia Ling's 2016 sketch comedy of the same name "Hello, Li Huanying" from season 1 of Comedy General Mobilization. It is also based on stories of Jia Ling's own mother, also named Li Huanying, who died in 2001 shortly after Jia started college.
